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Friday, January 13, 2012

Some Days are Moving Days

Lauren eagerly reaches for some strawberry Jell-O,kindly offered up by her Mom!

Daily List #3

Today we moved around.

Really today started about 2 hours after I posted yesterday's update 2am.

2am: We wake up from our midnight bedtime and she does not soundly sleep until noon-thirty.

Very scary moment for Lauren as the restrictions placed on her mobility clearly include: "Do not use arms for anything except food" (or something similar). So what does the pushy x-ray technician do at 4:30 am? He roughly grabs her right arm and starts to pull her up from a lying, to a sitting position. This would have easily and sadistically separated her sternum in half. I abruptly yelled many words at the man and made for his throat. ... no, I didn't go for his throat, but I am sure my clumsy, startled, lunatic-ishly violent lunging actions all made him feel like I was. He stopped and Lauren politely corrected him, explaining the correct way to treat a heart surgery patient. I fumed for a while and she got her x-ray.

Wonderful Christina (a close friend of Lauren's working at the Children's Hospital next door) stopped by at 6:15 bringing beautiful dark coffee and some presents for Lauren.

The doctors told us at 7:15 am that Lauren has been dispensing way too much blood the past 5 hours. One of her three chest drips just kept filling up and needing emptied. We find out from the x-ray that her left lung is partly enclosed in blood.

Several doctors jet out of the room leaving us sitting, waiting, wondering ... just trying to figure out how bad it really was.

It was bad. They sent us back down to ICU an hour or so later. The surgeon who did her operation came and talked with us right before we left the inpatient room. Dr. Campbell said the bleeding could either be old blood just hanging around dripping out, or from new blood - a bleeding stitch used to close her up, or several other internal sources, the heart, the surrounding scar tissue, the walls of her chest ... etc.

They said there was a chance we would need to go back into surgery today to find the source of the bleeding.

Eventually, after a lot of platelets were injected to help the blood get back to normal, 2 more x-rays, an ecocardiogram, 5 more hours in the ICU and a small team of experts examining every byte of data pouring from the machines connected to her, Lauren breathed easier when around 2:15 they said the bleeding had slowed down enough to not be dangerous and that even though the source of the blood remains undiscovered, she is safe from another surgery today.

The rest of the day has been spent enjoying the relief of having a 1:2 nurse to patient ratio, some jell-o bowl snacks, and knowing that she is in a steady, healing condition.

We will remain the night in the ICU.

She is exhausted but in very good spirits.

Its almost dinner time and she has been cleared to eat her second, first-meal. A regular diet and a wonderful menu of fine foods here we come!